A quick review here:
What I've achieved so far: I've got a simple and cheap water filtration device that can produce laundry quality water or higher out of laundry water. In other words, I believe that the water I got out of this system is at least good enough to reuse for laundry if it was used for laundry in the first place.
The water can be used for the spirulina systems as long as bleach isn't used for disinfecting. For that matter, the spirulina system may be able to kill off all bacteria and virus because of the high pH. But, to be on the safe side, before it is sent to the spirulina, it should be boiled. It should be boiled before going through the filter, come to think of it.
So, the filtered water has two uses. But what about drinking and bathing water?
I'm thinking another system will be required for that.
The condenser system that I've been working on probably won't be good enough. I'm going to need something else.
All along, I've been considering a de-humidifier for the relative humidity condensation. Could this not be possible for the water that is lost in the humidifier system?
Let's look what happens to that water that comes out of the humidifier. It wants to condense almost immediately as it comes out of the device. What would be better is if it were to evaporate completely and then run through a de-humidifier.
In order to do this, the water coming out of the humidifier needs to go through a long tubing that can let get away from the system as far as possible. In other words, grab off the water and collect it, but don't worry about the "losses". Those can be gained back later with the dehumidifier.
The long tubing can be my ozarka water bottles hooked up into series. This will give the mist plenty of volume to expand into water vapor while at the same time, we can collect the water and maybe be able to use it for bathing.
The thing not to do is try to collect water in the container, as I've been trying to do. It doesn't work well enough.
Instead, I will consider either making a condenser out of kiddie lab equipment and a boiling apparatus. I don't care if it is kiddie equipment as long as it can produce usable water.
Actually, the kid stuff looks cheaper than a dehumidifier. So, you've got that working for you.
I'm going to think on that one for awhile. No rush.
After a pause, a few more thoughts:
Number one: What I've been doing so far is similar to what happens as described in this video:
The last part, where the hot air is rejected to environment is what I want to use to run through a dehumidifier and gather that back up again without losing any water at all. In other words, the part that is being lost, which in my system is about 4 ounces of water per hour, will go into the room where it will raise the relative humidity level, which, by the way, what the humidifier is supposed to do in the first place.
The water that is collecting is like the sump in the video. It goes back into the chiller system, but I don't need that. I will use that water for either laundry, bathing, or drinking depending upon quality. At the moment, I've got laundry quality water coming out of it.
Since I'm not heating anything, the "kiddie" equipment isn't needed yet. It could be used for some other application when boiling is necessary. This may come into play when I want to get drinking water.
The dehumidifier might at least get bathing quality water, so here's a recap:
The current system that I've proven ( I think it can be said to be good enough to say that) will produce laundry water and "irrigation" water.
The part that is currently being lost, can be recovered using a dehumidifier. This will produce at least bathing quality water. Especially when you use a bit of bleach as a disinfectant.
The last part can be run through the kiddie lab in order to produce drinking water. This could be a fraction of the water that is currently being produced from the humidifier of my current system.
I don't want to quit on my system. Just keep improving it. Therefore, it won't be the last treatment for the water coming out of the current (proven) system. It will need further processing.
Update:
I've been linking these water filtration posts together into a type of proto series. From now on, they will be part of a new series. Each of the posts so far have a link in it somewhere, although these have not been clearly defined. It is possible to follow this up to this time, or track back into time to the first. You can also access the thread from the Table of Contents post for the main series, which the off-the-grid series link in the sidebar.
Next ( TBD)
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